As a wildlife filmmaker based in a country like India that is high on blue chip and large scale productions and popular voices doing voice overs, specializing in conservation filmmaking is harder than one can imagine.
India is home to Bollywood, an industry that producers over 300-350 Hindi language films each year, my conservation film on roadkills stands almost no chance of getting noticed.
This makes it a challenge to hit that mark with your target audience and get the publicity ball rolling.
How do I address this gap? Well, we make them feel emotionally attached to the animal.
You make it relatable.
You could look at the Big 5 or similar megafauna or make the story feel relatable and humanized. Personified.
Add the drama. Add conflict.
Add the sense of adventure and the idea of pursuing something.
Make them feel like their involvement in this story is worth their time :)
www.interiorsafarisea.com Did you know that Between 2014 and 2020, trophies of 5,409 animals of internationally protected species were imported into Germany, including 194 leopards, 208 brown bears, 166 hippos 229 elephants, 138 lions, nine polar bears and two black rhinos. Many of these animals were killed because of the hunts sold at hunting fairs.
As from 24th-29 January,2023 Europe’s largest hunting fair has been taking place in Dortmund, Germany. Over 80 national and international exhibitors from Canada, Argentina, Namibia, South Africa, Germany, Spain, Poland and others, are in attendance, offering trophy hunting trips, that cost between a few hundred and tens of thousands of euros, around the world to kill elephants, big cats, rhinos, polar bears and numerous other iconic species.
Trophy hunting is a form of entertainment rooted in wealth and pageantry that results in both severe cases of animal harm and far reaching damaging biological and ecological impacts. Yet, more than 120,000 animals are killed in Africa each year by big game hunters. The European Union is the second largest importer of hunting trophies from internationally protected species, behind the United States. Germany is by far the greatest importer within the European Union.
In this 3rd episode which is the last of my intended sharing is that I have total confidence and belief that we the young generation have the best chance as we have to change the way our people and the rest of the continent talks about and perceives conservation. We the now generation, are the best chance we have to ensure Africa and all its inhabitants animals,human or otherwise have a future. Can you imagine, the impact Kwame Nkuruma, Patrice Lumumba , Nelson Mandela and other renowned young Pan African leaders would have generated, if they had WhatsApp, Facebook, Twitter or Instagram? They were also young when they started their struggle for independence . Today’s young people is perhaps facing an even bigger challenge than the past generation were but we also have more power.
If there is one thing that I hope that the COVID-19 pandemic can teach us all, it is that the health of humans is one and the same as the health of nature and wildlife. When this pandemic is finally over, we cannot surely afford to return to “normal” and continue ignoring the destruction we have been causing in the name of development. And this is entirely up to the African youth, mojo live-streaming and the rest of the world to keep us all on the right path.
